La Cartita (03/04/2015) -- As many in the Mexican community already observe, the term 'illegal' is often equated with Mexican. For that reason, Mexican individuals born within the United States often refer to themselves as 'Latino' in order to create a distance that reflects their legal status. The popular shift from 'Mexican ' to 'Latino' as an identity is an open recognition of the tacit message propagated throughout mainstream media: too close an association with 'Mexican' is a surefire way to limit opportunity and respectability.
Plot narratives in the mainstream media make direct & indirect reference to the association between criminality and Mexican. While these narratives are nothing new, the widespread acceptance of them is startling. A liberal media outlet like NPR, for example, provides a favorable review to a TV series recycling the 'Mexican as a criminal' storyline without considering the cultural implicature they forment.
In Fresh Air's review of 'American Crime', NPR presents an audio snippet (at 4:30) where the main character's bare reaction to notice of her son's death openly reveals this equivalence between 'hispanic' (read: Mexican) and the word 'illegal'. After being notified about her sons death, her husband reveals to her that a 'hispanic' has murdered their son and raped his wife. The mother then pointedly asks 'Some illegal?' to which the husband replies "just hispanic". The implication here is that if it had been an 'illegal' (an extremely unlikely scenario), then their legal status would have added insult to injury.
The equivalence between the terms is not the main issue in Fresh Air's TV review. David Bianculli is only asking his audience to appreciate the tension that exists between the couple as if 'we' were in their shoes. Obviously, imagining what it is like to be middle class, white and middle aged is not a universally easy experience. In the context of a racialzed United States, however, liberal media output of this kind suggests that it may not matter to NPR's producers whether their content is inclusive.